How ‘Sanditon’ Season 2 Was Shaped by Rose Williams and Crystal Clarke’s IRL Friendship

The fact that Sanditon Season 2 even exists is a testament to sisterhood. After the show was cancelled by British broadcaster ITV in late 2019, the fandom that emerged after the show’s successful 2020 run on Masterpiece on PBS — a fandom known as the “Sanditon Sisterhood” — helped convince PBS to resurrect the Jane Austen series for two more seasons. It’s fitting, then, that one of the most beautiful reunions we saw in the Sanditon Season 2 premiere was that of two friends who had become like sisters to each other. The moment Sanditon heroine Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) totally lights up is when she gets to see pal Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke) again.

Rose Williams told Decider,”It was really amazing and surreal the first time I saw Crystal she was in costume. We were walking to set and she had just gotten in from New York and had to isolate. So we really hadn’t gotten to see each other until our first day of filming. So she was walking ahead in her costume and I was like, ‘Is that Crystal?’ It was amazing. I was literally reunited with Miss Lambe.”

Based on Jane Austen’s last, unfinished manuscript, Sanditon tells the story of a young woman who leaves her sheltered home to explore a seaside resort. One of the many visitors she meets is Miss Georgiana Lambe, a biracial heiress from the West Indies. Miss Lambe has only just arrived in Sanditon when the manuscript ends, but in the show, Charlotte and Georgiana become good friends. Sanditon star Crystal Clarke revealed to Decider that “our relationship as Charlotte and Georgiana is very similar” to the friendship the actresses share in real life.

When PBS was fighting to bring the series back, Clarke was on the fence. She wanted more for her character, which in her mind included additional diversity in the writers’ room as well as historical consultants who could help the production better capture what life would have been like for Black British people in the Regency era. Clarke shared that Williams had her back in the fight. Eventually, the production made those changes, hiring consultants like Sharon Johnson, Steve Martin, and Paula Jayne Byrne. Clarke shared that through these consultants, “we were learning about this history of Black British people.”

“At that time if people were painting portraits, they could change the color of people’s skin to essentially make it so you question or don’t really realize that these people are of partial African heritage. I think that was questionably the case in some of these stories and I found that really interesting,” Clarke said. “It’s really hard to find this information about these people in Black British history and people who existed throughout their time in England unless you really really dig deep or unless you have people like Paula or Sharon and Steve.”

“It was really eye-opening to really see just actually how much has been done to erase that history. I think that’s kind of the scariest part, but then the most beautiful thing that now through this character, we’re able to tell a story of that similar vein,” Clarke said. “It’s so mind boggling to some people [that Black Britons existed in this time] and so interesting to see the surprise in someone’s face to find that this was a character that was originally included by Jane Austen herself. Because that’s how much of history has been rewritten or erased.”

Rose Williams said that Charlotte and Georgiana “very much are on their own kind of separate journeys, but that core friendship is such an important thing throughout the show.”

“The two women in the story are both navigating what it means to be in society,” Williams said. “Both, for different reasons, are finding difficulty with the heavy burden of marriage. Obviously, Miss Lambe is under pressure to get married to secure her fortune. Charlotte very much doesn’t want to get married but is under pressure to secure her family’s financial stability. So they’re experiencing different challenges but come together as friends.”

That ability for the heroines of Sanditon to come together in sisterhood isn’t just powerful; it’s also fun. Clarke shared that her favorite scene to shoot all season was one with both Rose Williams and Rosie Graham, who plays Charlotte’s younger sister Alison.

“There’s a scene of all of us in the bed doing our little chit chat and updating each other on everything and talking about Colbourne and having a little wink-y face moment about Lockhart and talking about Alison’s romance,” Clarke said. “I really love that scene, it was super sweet.”

“I mean, Georgiana is my favorite character,” Williams said. “I think she’s an amazing, amazing character.”

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